1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer technology, and more particularly, to a network-based computer testing system which can be used to perform a concurrent testing procedure on a batch of computer products, such as notebook computers, for quality assurance of the notebook computers before they are shipped to the market.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer products, such as notebook computers, should undergo a series of testing steps before they are shipped to the market. These testing steps include the checking of hardware/firmware/software configurations, virus scan, soft scan, and so on. Conventionally, there are two methods for implementing the testing of notebook computers.
The first method is to use floppy disks to store all the required testing files and associated data files, by which the test engineer can insert these disks one after the other to the floppy disk drive on each computer unit being tested. This method, however, has the following drawbacks.
(1) Since floppy disks are small in capacity, it requires each computer unit to be tested at a number of sites, typically 3 to 4 sites, to complete the overall testing procedure.
(2) It requires a great number of floppy disks to store the required testing files and associated data files, which would make the overall testing procedure quite inefficient and laborious to implement, particularly when copying the required disks.
(3) It requires the test engineer to select and manually insert the required disks, so that human errors might occur, which would make the overall testing procedure quite inefficient.
(4) It would be difficult to update new versions of the testing files and associated data files to the disks since copying files to disks is highly laborious and time-wasting.
(5) The use of floppy disks and the required manpower to handle these disks would make the testing procedure highly cost-ineffective and inefficient.
The second method is to use a network system to link each computer unit being tested to a file server that can download all the required testing files and associated data files to the computer unit being tested. To realize this method, however, it requires each computer unit being tested to be installed with a network card for linking to the network system. For a computer unit without a built-in network card, it then requires the coupling of an external network card to the computer unit. One drawback to the use of external network card, however, is that it would make the overall testing procedure more laborious and inconvenient to implement. Moreover, the frequent coupling and decoupling of a network card to the computer units being tested would easily wear out the card.
It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that can perform a concurrent testing procedure on a batch of notebook computers by linking these notebook computers to a network system through a standard communication interface, such as RS-232, USB, or IEEE-1394, rather than a dedicated network card, so that the testing procedure can be made more convenient and cost-effective, and can be completed in one pass at a single test site without having to undergo a number of test sites.
It is another objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that allows the use of only one disk for each computer unit being tested without having to use a number of disks to store all the required testing files and associated data files.
It is still another objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that allows the overall testing procedure to automatically carried out, without requiring the test engineer to select and swap required disks in and out of the computer unit being tested.
It is yet another objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that allows all the required testing files and associated data files to be centrally managed by a file server, so that they can be easily updated through the network system when needed, without having to use manpower to make updates.
It is still yet another objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that can be realized in a more cost-effective manner without having to use lots of disks and hardware devices.
It is still yet another objective of this invention to provide a network-based computer testing system that allows a batch of computer units to be tested and also allow the test results of each computer unit to be individually recorded for tracking and quality assurance.
In accordance with the foregoing and other objectives, the invention proposes a novel network-based computer testing system.
The network-based computer testing system of the invention is characterized in that it allows the computer units being tested to be linked to the network system by means of a standard communication interface, such as RS-232, USB, or IEEE-1394, rather than a dedicated network card. Moreover, all the required testing files and associated data files are stored in the file server, so that they can be conveniently downloaded to each computer unit being tested via the network system.
The network-based computer testing system of the invention comprises a communication port expander, an administrator, a network system, a product database, and a file server. In the case of prior art, the required testing files and associated data files are stored in a number of floppy disks, which requires the test engineer to laboriously swap disks in and out of the computer unit being tested; whereas in the case of the invention, these files are stored in the file server. Therefore, the network-based computer testing system of the invention allows the overall testing procedure to be implemented more cost-effectively and efficiently than the prior art.